NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Women navigators in the age of sail
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2020 Sep 23, 19:44 -0400
“... I would like to point out that it was by no means unusual for the captain's
wife to be able to navigate. I got the strong impression that in many
cases the captain insisted that his wife should know how to do it because
he did not trust his first mate. There was also the distinct possibility
that sickness and death would take away the official navigators -- in 1838
Mary Dow (*Clement*) was the only one on board well enough to navigate when
some sort of epidemic laid the officers and captain low. And the
newspapers loved the stories of the women who took over command, including
the navigation of the ship, when the captain fell ill or expired -- some of
which are true, while others are not.
By the turn of the century, it was routine for the captain's wife to know
how to navigate -- in 1891 Honor Matthews sailed to San Francisco to study
navigation before marrying Captain James Earle (*Charles W*. *Morgan*) In
1906 Banning Blanchard (*Bangalore*) gave his bride a sextant as a wedding
present. She wrote:
*Banning would be on deck looking at the sun through his sextant while I
was in the cabin looking at the chronometer. When he would shout TIME I
would put down on paper what it said on the chronometer. Then I would take
my turn on deck and we would work out the position of the ship and place it
on the chart. When the sun was not out during the day we would take the
sights by the stars at night*.
Mrs. Cressy's accomplishments are well recorded in the papers, and while it
was not unusual for her to be able to navigate, she was certainly very good
at it, consulting Maury's charts when calculating a course.”
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2020 Sep 23, 19:44 -0400
Below is part of a post to another forum that should be of interest.
The author, Joan Druet, is a noted maritime historian and author, particularly on the role of women in the age of sail.
Don Seltzer
“... I would like to point out that it was by no means unusual for the captain's
wife to be able to navigate. I got the strong impression that in many
cases the captain insisted that his wife should know how to do it because
he did not trust his first mate. There was also the distinct possibility
that sickness and death would take away the official navigators -- in 1838
Mary Dow (*Clement*) was the only one on board well enough to navigate when
some sort of epidemic laid the officers and captain low. And the
newspapers loved the stories of the women who took over command, including
the navigation of the ship, when the captain fell ill or expired -- some of
which are true, while others are not.
By the turn of the century, it was routine for the captain's wife to know
how to navigate -- in 1891 Honor Matthews sailed to San Francisco to study
navigation before marrying Captain James Earle (*Charles W*. *Morgan*) In
1906 Banning Blanchard (*Bangalore*) gave his bride a sextant as a wedding
present. She wrote:
*Banning would be on deck looking at the sun through his sextant while I
was in the cabin looking at the chronometer. When he would shout TIME I
would put down on paper what it said on the chronometer. Then I would take
my turn on deck and we would work out the position of the ship and place it
on the chart. When the sun was not out during the day we would take the
sights by the stars at night*.
Mrs. Cressy's accomplishments are well recorded in the papers, and while it
was not unusual for her to be able to navigate, she was certainly very good
at it, consulting Maury's charts when calculating a course.”
- Joan Druet
